Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

Heinz

stuartw101 wrote:

Cool, so how much would it costs to add an additional box at a later date? It says its an extra £10 a month it you get multi room,, so does this mean its £10 for 2 boxes?

The additional £10 multiroom subscription pays for a second viewing card which will give you the same channels as your main package on a second box. The snag is you have to have both boxes connected to the same telephone line at all times, even after the 12 months (to stop you shipping one abroad or selling a discount package to your neighbour).

Sky will try to charge you £99 for a second box (see HERE) but most people either move their existing box when upgrading to Sky+ or buy a second box on ebay.

AceT

Thanks for tip on haggling with NTL.

Was on 1Mb BB, Talk Unlimited and TV base pack paying 3 for £30. Phoned and spoke to Simon and he was very pleasant. He offered me 10Mb BB, Talk Unlimited and TV Base pack for £21.49 !!!!! :T

Thanked him and immediately said don't forget I need a cable modem and he said no problem, I will arrange for one to be sent out.....!!

Go on....Make the call.....

Paddy_Landau

This post is for people with NTL with two telephone lines.

I have 2 telephone lines, Talk Unlimited 24, TV + family pack, 1Mb broadband. Used to have BT, so there is already a BT line.

Believe it or not, when I phoned TalkTalk, the woman put me off, saying that BT would charge £100 and so I shouldn't go with TalkTalk.

I did my homework carefully, factoring in:

- BT's minimum 3-month contract for reconnection
- BT's £100 charge and minimum 12-month contract for the second line
- Costs of voicemail plus, and caller ID (varies between providers)
- Costs of Talk Unlimited 24 (on NTL) and 1899 or equivalent on BT and TalkTalk
- Changes in prices to the TV package as I moved off NTL
- Changes in prices as I would be on:
* a combination of NTL, BT and TalkTalk for the first three months
* a combination of BT and TalkTalk for the next nine months
* TalkTalk only thereafter

Definitely worth changing. A saving of £10.50/month for the first year, and £19/month for the second year...

... Assuming no price changes - it's likely that NTL will reduce prices in the face of competition, and who knows what TalkTalk will do.

Called, NTL and discussed this with them. They agreed to reduce costs by £12/month, keeping broadband at 1Mb (I don't mind as I use broadband mostly for business). Wouldn't go any further. I agreed to that, saying I'd review in a year.

Lady_K

So how much are you actually paying then fr 2 lines base tv and 1meg bb?

Paddy_Landau

Lady_K wrote:

So how much are you actually paying then fr 2 lines base tv and 1meg bb?

Broadband: £17.99
TV: £30 (includes family pack and one telephone line)
2nd line: £7.50
Talk Unlimited 24: £14.50
Caller ID & Voicemail Plus: £3.50 per phone (£7 total)

Then subtract the £12 discount that I mentioned.

I wonder if I could have got it lower still?

Lady_K

I think that sounds quite a lot even with the discount, but then again you wouldn't get calls would you on talk unlimited I suppose. And you do have the extra family pack where I have just base.

Wouldn't you have been better signing up for 1899 or similar instead, you might save more on that then I think

I have 2 lines (123 rate)

Base tv as its a second in the bedroom

Broadband 1 mb

Total £21.50 + Calls but they are very low something like £3 each month or even less but then it works out on 1899 at about £2.50 max per month

If you brought a cheap answerphone too you'd save the cost of voicemail. I don't like that personally as when the person with vm is on the phone people automatically get put through to voice mail and get charged for connection when they could have jusyt had the engaged tone. Phone companies are making loads out of this

I think with the amount you have on there they could have been a bit more generous. Nothing to stop you ringing back though saying you've spoken to others who are paying less

damonw

A friendly chat with Chris at Telewest has just reduced my bill, from £33.99 to £29.00 per month for the next year, for Starter TV/telephone/2Mb broadband. He also gave me Talk International [normally costs £3.00 per month] free for 6 months, so that's a total saving of £60 in the year plus a notional £18 for something I might not use...

There was also talk of downgrading to half Mb broadband for a total monthly cost of £25.99, but I declined that.

I know I haven't saved as much as you professionals, but I'm glad I took five minutes to call. Thanks for the information, MoneySavers! :T

Chris_Kirkman

Just got off the phone to NTL and got a great reduction.
I had basic 1-2-3 phone package £10.50 line rental and 2Mb broadband at £24.99.
Spoke to a very nice lady and when I told her that I was planning to switch to Talk-Talk she immediately said that in response to the Talk-Talk special offers NTL also have deals available. She then offered me an inclusive package of line rental, 10MB broadband and Talk Unlimited 24 at £19.49 per month for 1 year. This was without me pushing it at all as I really didn't want to switch.

Destiny33 wrote:

Please any help would be so so much appreciated. So far i'm stuck and all this talk of 20 pm and indefinate is so so impossible for me. I am getting a brick wall and they cant do anymore?????


Thank you someone please
D
xx

Destiny 33, all I can suggest is that you do the same but make sure you call them on 0800 052 9403 and select option 2.


Chris

bucks73

Just got off the phone from NTL
I have 1mb broadband at £17.99 which he changed to £9 a month
I also have all the TV at £52.50 - he took £10 a month off this to make the same as sky. Apparently I need a new box to get 2mb (upgraded to 4mb in June) so have to wait for a call back to arrange this (not holding breath on that one!!) if it happens I can have the 2MB for £12.50 a month - don't use phone much so had no haggle power there.
So got £19 a month off for at least 6months and told to phone back then - not sure if that is good but I was happy £114 that is mine instead of theirs!!

cwaring

kboy28 wrote:

The Customer Relations dept tried to put me off Talk Talk suggesting their tech support cost money and they could not offer 8MB.

Both of which are very fair points. I will say at this point that I am a very happy Telewest customer

It's all very well saying that deal A is better than Deal B, but are you comparing like-for-like?

I have lost count of the number of people who have come into the Blueyonder usenet groups (aka newsgroups) and boasted about the latest ADSL offer they have seen that, on the surface, offers a better deal than BY.

However, when looked at in detail, it's never usually as good. Here's what I mean.

1. TT offer "up to" 8mb. Well, firstly you usually have to be within shouting distance of the exchange to get the full speed. With TW (and NTL) you can get "up to 10mb" no matter where you are in the service area.

2. TT service has a monthly cap of 40gb. Depending on what you do with your connection, that can soon be used up. TW has never had any caps and I believe that NTL have now dropped theirs as well.

3. If you're into the p2p thing (which I'm not) then TT will restrict your activities in peak hours. There are no such restrictions with TW. Not sure about NTL.

4. I couldn't find the number for TT Tech Support but I'm willing to bet it's an 090 number. Calls to TW TS are free if you have a phone-line with them and only 0845 if you don't.

5. Extras like Usenet access, web-space, etc. Do TT include these? I know TW/NTL do.

I also think there was something a little off-putting or restrictive in their T&C but I can't seem to find it at the moment :mad:

I am not saying that the TT (or any other) deal is bad, but you really should compare like-for-like.

I'm all for saving money, but can I also say while I'm here, that I really don't agree with this "let's pretend I'm gonna cancel and see if I can get something for nothing" philosophy.

If you really do find a better deal then by all means get them (whoever they are) to try and match/better it, but just to do it to get a reduction in what you pay is not good enough. We would all like to pay less, but the money they save you will have to come from somewhere so they'll probably put up the prices for the rest of us. Thanks a lot